residency self certification

Hello,

I have also left Germany and want to cancel internet and two mobile phones. I realise that o2 is desperate for money (financial difficulties perhaps?) and will make me pay for a few months more but is it possible to do all of this by email - given O2 is a 21st century company and not one of those ridiculous organisations that still asks for faxes and letters AND that there’s a global pandemic which makes buying stamps an infection risk AND that o2 is a customercentric organisation?

I sent a cancallation letter by fax a month ago but no confirmation - that’s my responsibility as I did it using one of those free online fax services (and it may not have worked) but, after all, who - apart from dinosaurs - uses fax?  

My experience of o2 so far is that they get you into a contract and you can’t stop paying them - even for no service after you have left - because they make it hard to leave. Is that a fair comment or is it all, predictably, the customer’s fault?

Thanks

David

Edit o2_Lars: Moved to existing thread.

o2 charges a “penalty” - I spent nearly four years with 02, spent a fortune, and they “penalise” their own customers for leaving like we’ve done something wrong! These firms rabbit on about the free-market and deregulation but don’t like it when the customer expresses free choice. Buyer beware!

“Self-certification” in Italy is when you fill in a form provided by the local authorities to say you are resident at an address and sign it yourself - you “self” certify rather than being certified by the authorities.

Yes,of course you are right that email is from last century as well - too modern for o2 in this case - the point being that it is widely used elsewhere these days. Are you saying, all firms should only use fax and letters?  As said, even the utilities firm (hardly a beacon of modernity) allows customers to close accounts using email for sums of money that dwarf what I will have to pay.  But not o2 XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Anyway, I know I have to pay the three months “because it’s in the contract” - I am not trying to evade payment - but, I’m a “paying customer”, o2 claims to want feedback and here it is.

What I CAN recommend also is to avoid o2 like the plague - they ripped me off in the UK and told me lies, so perhaps it’s not accidental.   

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

edit o2_Tobias: some sentences were deleted according to our netiquette

The experience with o2 is not bad luck. There is a shared and highly profitable business model and policy.

I don’t trust o2 to accept self-certification. Due to Covid, getting the right documents, printing them, sending them from the post-office by certified post, etc., is a long, expensive and frustrating process that puts my health and the health of others at risk. Given that other non-communications firms have managed it and o2 doesn’t, it raises questions as to motivation and responsibility.

Funny how some posters get to use a term but mine was censored. It’s a real term with a real meaning as is the accusation (second person use) levelled at me of childishness.  What better word was there to use? Sycophants?  Why would I be embarrassed – it’s my perception of the set-up.

It was not specifically addressed to you but to two points. The first is that o2 hides behind this community instead of providing a proper customer service. Customers ask questions and the company leaves it to individual posters to respond. Secondly, the reply to my post was a patronising justification for the company punishing its own customers and completely unhelpful (though it helps o2, which I guess was the point). The result manifests as a kind of defensive sycophancy that shields the company by using “third-party enthusiasts” to find a way to make out that the company is right and its customers are wrong. In this way, o2 avoid having to justify their behaviour because they have created an environment where others do it for them. They evade responsibility. Whether you are wittingly or otherwise being exploited in this way is not for me to say.  

It’s simply not good enough for o2 to say, “every provider will have happy and unhappy customers” but of course they didn’t – someone else posted it on their behalf so they can’t even own that trite truism.

The “terrible experience” with Italian providers is not the joke the emoji at the end of the sentence makes it out to be. There are serious consequences to what these organisations do, no less than the terrible experience with other utilities providers. Perhaps on reflection, it might be agreed that it is not the joking matter, the second reply might imply. Would o2 go on record stating that terrible provider experience is a joke? Well, they don’t need to because someone has done it for them.

About Italian providers, I know dozens of people who have had terrible experiences with Italian providers. I have had appalling experiences with at least four of them – far worse than o2 even.  This explains why I didn’t complain about the first two problems with o2 and, given the response (not from o2 but from someone they hid behind), I now realise I was right - it would have been a waste of time anyway.  The lesson is: the company is always right, the customer is always wrong, just pay the money, don’t complain, protest as much as you like but only use words we approve of so long as nothing changes, we’re not the worst in the world, so that’s all right then.

Sorry Lars but if we unpack what you are saying, you seem to be arguing that customers should be grateful because it was worse in the past. Also, “just three months” trivialises the sums involved. I’ve had o2 internet and two mobile SIMS for four years, purchased two expensive smartphones and suffered two instances of poor customer service (lies about date of connection and about the SIMS) which I didn’t complain about.  

You are justifying the company making customers pay and extra three months “penalty” for leaving the country. Penalty!  I’m not trying to evade payment - if o2 has financial problems that if needs ex-customers to help with, it’s in the contract.  But actually, because of Covid-19 and o2 insistance on using fax and letters and the hostile anti-customer attitude that means I can’t trust o2, it is more than three months because a. I need to get Italian residency certificate under Covid restrictions (almost impossible) and I have to send everything by registered post.  EVEN UNDER COVID, o2 IS INFLEXIBLE AND UNHELPFUL. IT INCONCENIENCES THE CUSTOMERS. BY FORCING CUSTOMERS TO GET ALL THESE DOCUMENTS AND SEND THEM BY POST, o2 IS RISKING MY HEALTH AND THE HEALTH OF OTHERS! What kind of customer service is that?!

o2 is a telecommunications firm that could easily accept contracts being terminated by email yet it refuses to do so because it knows that making it easier for customers to leave, removes the extra costs.

So, o2 hide behind contracts and procedures and processes and being better than in the past or some other companies - a typical “inside-out” organisation - and in doing so demonstrates an unhealthy attitude to customers. 

Potential customers should be warned that there are hidden costs when they leave. As you say, it’s in the contract so, I think this message from o2 needs to be amplified, don’t you?

o2 will have its pound of flesh and I will pay up - I have no choice - but in the long run, the company will lose out.  This behaviour will lose you potential customers and revenue.  I’ll make sure of that!

Hello @vidgro,

you will find the information regarding the three months base fee in §46 TKG.

Regards,

Lars

Hello @vidgro,

keep in mind that this community is in no way a support forum. In this community customer help pother customers. In many cases we modertators have a look into things and help if necessary.

Feedback from customer is valued and always taken into consideration but there ar alwyas things that we in our community can not change and will not discuss. 

I am sorry to hear that the cancelation process does not meet your expectations, unfortunately there is no way that we can change about it. A cancelation is possible via phone after preregistering for cancelation, via postal mail or via fax. If documents are needed to cancel any contract to an earlier date the possibility to send this documents are either postal mail or fax.

Regards,

Lars

For the umpteenth time the bit of the website with my data on says, "Aus technischen Gründen können Ihre Daten derzeit nicht vollständig geladen werden. Bitte versuchen Sie es zu einem späteren Zeitpunkt erneut" Four years of it! At one point can I become impatient with it?

So the contract has ended, I will happily pay to return the router from abroad from my own pocket but no idea still where to send.

O2 continues to help itself to my bank account like a hungry dog licking a discarded kebab. Would you like me to set up a crowdfunding page for O2, once I have been forced to close my bank account to stop them emptying it? Share the love, eh?

Think of it as the first of many expensive and unforgettable parting gifts you will be unable to refuse.

Thank you Matze, much appreciated. 

I will send it by courier so I have delivery on record.